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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28023918">Robot Operating System 3.6: Human</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/zhennan/pseuds/zhennan'>zhennan</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>A.C.E (Beat Interactive Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Dystopian society, Humanoids, M/M, Robots, Steampunk, honestly i'm not that good at writing this kinda stuff AND adding romance into it, so i'm really sorry about what this became</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 22:26:52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,815</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28023918</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/zhennan/pseuds/zhennan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the year 2031 and technology ultimately runs society. With just one quick scan by a government operated robot, years of personal records and data are at one's disposal, ready to use for any kind of circumstance, both good and bad. That is, unless you take matters into your own hands and hack into the system, erasing your every trace, and then eventually free said robot who tried to scan you in the first place.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kim Byeongkwan/Kim Sehyoon | Wow</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>le fantastique - a.c.e fic fest round 2</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Robot Operating System 3.6: Human</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Original prompt: Cyberpunk au where Wow is a humanoid capable of understanding human emotions(or half human), and is part of secret intelligence unit, in charge of recollecting data about the underground Seoul and, especially, to find the bio-hackers (people that hack servers and bio chips to erase their traces from CCTV and memories and, hence, hide from the government). Then he met Jason, a guy with pretty eyes and alluring smirk. A guy with absolutely no bio data.</p><p>thank you so much for requesting this amazing prompt, I really enjoyed writing it! I ended up focusing a lot on the plot instead of the romance, though, so I'm really sorry and I hope you don't mind that. I hope you like it regardless!!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Good morning, Wow. What’s the weather like today?”</p><p>The robot in the corner of the room straightens its back at the sound of Junhee’s voice, pushing its eyelids up and emitting a small light. “Good morning, Jun. It is September 29, 2032, 8:34 AM. Today, the temperature in Seoul, South Korea is 26 degrees Celsius, with zero percent probability of precipitation. Would you like me to share the wind speed and air quality levels?”</p><p>Junhee shakes his head, and the gleam in Wow’s eyes disappear. He decides not to wear a jacket today and quickly laces up his boots. “Come on, Wow, let’s get to work.”</p><p>Wow picks up one foot, moves a step forward, and sets its foot back onto the floor. It does the same with the other leg and repeats the process while alternating legs, almost like a loop in a computer program. It follows Junhee out of the small apartment and closes the door behind it, despite not being told to. They walk a few blocks and a hologram of their boss is prompted as they enter their office building.</p><p>“Hey Jun, I’m out of the office today. Work's the same as always, though. Some of our security cameras caught a few A.C.E members so have Wow connect to the database and go through their biodata,” the chief orders before the projection expires and he disappears midair.</p><p>Jun sighs. “You heard him.”</p><p>Wow leads the way to their shared office. Though Junhee walks all the way to his cubicle and takes a seat in his desk chair, the android stands on a platform in the corner of the room. Its eyes twinkle again and its vision is blocked by a data downloading progress bar. The footage caught by the cameras must be a lot, because it takes five minutes for it to process the collection rather than the usual one.</p><p>Once the progress bar is full and reads one hundred percent, Wow steps off the platform and joins Jun by his desk, who is viewing the members of A.C.E through his computer.</p><p>“Scan hacker number 651,” he orders. </p><p>It answers almost immediately. “No biodata for hacker number 651 found.”</p><p>Junhee slams his fist against his desk. “God fucking damn it. Scan hacker number 652.”</p><p>“No biodata for hacker number 652 found.”</p><p>“Not even a name?” He rolls his eyes. “Technology is useless. I tell Chief every time that we need to actually go over there and physically catch them instead of hiding behind our computers but he never listens.”</p><p>Wow blinks its eyes and the light disappears again. “I agree. It is getting easier for average humans to hack into government databases and changes often go unnoticed. If not catching them in person, we must work on updating our systems.”</p><p>“You’re so right, Wow,” he compliments. “I should relay that to Chief. You’d think he’s already well aware of the lack of protection our databases have, but he doesn’t do shit about it.”</p><p>“Would you like me to file a complaint or send an email?”</p><p>“God, no,” he quickly rejects. “Forget about work, no one’s even in the office right now. Let’s just go get some breakfast.”</p><p>Wow follows Junhee out of the office and they walk together to the convenience store right across the street. Wow leads the way, making sure to cross the street at the most optimal time and speed. It opens the door for Jun and helps him retrieve his usual breakfast items.</p><p>“Sir, you’re forgetting your bottle of coffee,” it tells him. Jun sighs.</p><p>“I’m cutting coffee out of my diet, I’m way too dependent on caffeine,” he informs it.</p><p>“Do you want me to take note of that?” Wow asks.</p><p>He tilts his head, thinking more in depth about it. “No, I guess not.” Wow simply nods.</p><p>The robot is actually the one who stands in line while Jun waits outside. It greets the cashier as it’s programmed and follows protocol to scan him for his biodata. When he makes eye contact with it, he smiles at it, and somehow Wow smiles back. The only data he receives is the name Jason, yet it’s unable to read the rest of his personal information. It assumes its system is temporarily down or needs updating.</p><p>Jason scans the items and tells it the price, to which Wow extends its hand to the credit card reader. An error message appears on the screen and Jason frowns.</p><p>“Seems like our card scanner’s not working or it’s not compatible with your version,” he states. “I think we have a dated one somewhere, let me try that.” </p><p>Jason crouches down, only to quickly stand back up with a new machine in his hands. Wow presses its hand onto the machine’s screen, which lights up, and Jason retracts it immediately. “Still not working, sorry about that. Do you have cash or a card on you?”</p><p>Wow shakes its head. “I will page my boss. Paging: Park Junhee.”</p><p>Junhee walks in a minute later and Jason clenches his jaw. “Your humanoid’s system needs updating, sir, his card scanner is incompatible with ours. It’ll be six forty-three.”</p><p>“He’s a robot.” He narrows his eyes at him. “Nothing about him is human.”</p><p>“Sorry.” Jason raises his hands up in defense. “Fix your robot, then.”</p><p>He rolls his eyes, swiping his card quickly. “I don’t need the receipt,” he says, turning around and walking out of the store. Wow bows at the cashier before exiting, but its system can’t help but store the humanoid comment. It analyzes the body language between both its boss and the cashier, and its chest momentarily heats up.</p><p>“I think I do need an update,” it agrees out loud. Junhee scoffs.</p><p>“You’re listening to that cashier boy? He knows nothing about robots if he thinks you’re a humanoid.”</p><p>Wow wonders why it’s coming up with conclusions contrasting from what it’s been programmed and told to think. The data was not adding up and the heaviness in its chest never left. It stayed there even when Wow stood in the corner of the room, getting its rightful update.</p><p>Junhee watches the robot fall limp during the update and listens to its hardware whirring furiously. He waits for the update to finish and Wow to power on again. Its eyes open and emit a light, signalling the end of the process. It steps off the platform and faces Junhee.</p><p>“Update complete, now running Robot Operating System 3.6.”</p><p>“Run a background check on the cashier at the convenience store,” he orders him quickly, and Wow falters for a moment, already knowing the only information available is his name. It takes a second for it to remember the cashier’s face and hesitates before scanning for his biodata. He grows impatient at how slow the robot’s running. “God, did the new update fuck up your processing speed? Scan the worker.”</p><p>“Jason,” Wow blurts out, “No biodata found besides a name, Jason.”</p><p>“I fucking knew it!” Jun exclaims. “He’s one of the hackers. Do you recognize him from any of the surveillance footage?”</p><p>“No,” it answers quickly.</p><p>He checks the time on his watch and sighs. “Okay, you stay here. If your battery depletes to 10%, go to the charging station. I’m going back to the store.”</p><p>Wow observes Junhee leaving the office and does exactly what it was told. It tries to process all of this new information, that this Jason man was part of the biohackers and that Junhee was on his way to arrest him. However, the thought process is interrupted by a download bar blocking its vision, and Wow begins to panic. Before it could press its reset button to send a hacking report, the download bar disappears and a rhythmic beating in its chest becomes apparent.</p><p>The robot recognizes it as a heart. It then looks down at its hands, moving its joints freely, and recognizes itself as a human. He shakes his head— not a human, but a human that’s been worked on: a humanoid.</p><p>Scenes start to play in the humanoid’s head. The face and voice of a woman, welcoming him to the world as Sehyoon. The tall figure of a man, who holds him in his arms and bounces him up and down excitedly. A group of similarly young boys greeting him with a smile and sharing their toys with him. A car ramming into his side, the sounds of screams around him, and darkness.</p><p>Water leaks out of his eyes. He quickly brings his hands up to his face, wiping away the liquid and recognizing it as tears. His chest expands and he recognizes it as a breath. He can’t stop breathing. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, like a loop in a computer program, except it was real. He was real. He was human.</p><p>Amongst all of the new information inputted into him that hour, the one that stands out the most was an address. Though he isn’t sure what it is, he enters the address into his built-in navigation application and begins to walk the fifteen minutes there. He can’t even remember the order given to him by his boss, and at this point, Junhee wasn’t even his boss anymore. He was his own boss now, and his first task was to figure out where this address led to.</p><p>When his inner GPS tells him his destination is on his left, Sehyoon slows to a stop and turns to the rundown, abandoned shack to his side. He takes a step forward but jumps back in surprise when the door opens to reveal the cashier from the convenience store. This time, when Sehyoon runs a background check on him, he gets all of his information, including his real name.</p><p>“You’re here!” he exclaims with a grin. “No one followed you, right?”</p><p>Sehyoon hadn’t even considered that. He raises his eyebrows, looking back to where he came from, searching for any sign of Junhee or his coworkers. Then he remembers the tracker implanted in his arm from when he was government property. He looks down at his wrist and reaches to rip out the tracker, but a hand quickly holds his own.</p><p>“I already disabled your tracker, you’re okay,” he tells him.</p><p>“Thank you, Byeongkwan.”</p><p>Byeongkwan holds a finger to his lips, indicating his name was a secret. “You’re the only person who knows I’m Byeongkwan.”</p><p>“Do you want me to take note—” Sehyoon stops himself mid sentence, shaking his head. Rather than manually inputting details into his memory, he simply remembers it now. He also acknowledges the fact that he was just called a person and finds his lips curl up into a smile. “Okay, I won’t tell anyone.” </p><p>“Come on in, we shouldn’t stay outside,” Byeongkwan finally tells him, beckoning him inside the shack. Outside, it looks way too small, and Sehyoon falters before stepping into the shack. However, Byeongkwan opens a trapdoor on the ground and jumps in. He does the same, not forgetting to close the shack’s door behind him.</p><p>Underground, there are hundreds of people gathered. They aren’t even doing anything special, just simply existing in one space. Sehyoon sees a row of beds in one part of the room, some people lying on them, others sitting around and talking or reading. There’s a kitchen in another section, connected to a room with multiple tables, and people downing their meal trays in seconds. In another corner, he finds around a dozen people hunched over their respective desktop computers, typing mindlessly. He begins to put two and two together. These are the biohackers who work so hard to erase every trace of themselves from the government, but that wasn’t the only thing they were doing. They also provide shelter and food to the people who have been rejected by society: those who have been deemed criminals, who lost their jobs or homes, or were just unlucky. Though Sehyoon can identify every single person in the room through his software, he has a feeling they would all be blank before his update.</p><p>“You can probably already tell what this place is, right?” Byeongkwan lets out a hearty chuckle. “This is what we’ve been working on for the last five years: giving the homeless a home and the starving food. More recently, we’ve been trying to recover humanoids too.”</p><p>“Like me,” Sehyoon realizes.</p><p>“You were quite a coincidence, though.” He looks up at him sincerely. “Or fate, really. The convenience store really is my part-time job — though I’ll have to quit now — and when I rung up your items, I immediately knew you were a human. You know, robots with your kind of power don’t actually exist? We don’t have technology that advanced. Instead, the government takes humans, works on them to combine their natural brain power with a computer, and completely erases their memory so they become their property. It makes me sick.”</p><p>“What can I do to help?” he asks, a burning in his chest. Byeongkwan sighs.</p><p>“Nothing, really. You can’t go out, in case someone recognizes you. Hell, I can’t either, since that stupid fucking boss of yours knows what I look like. He probably spread that shit around too, so my boss also knows and so does everyone at that goddamn store.”</p><p>Sehyoon pauses to think for a moment. “Well, I guess I can still log into the government database and shut something down.”</p><p>Byeongkwan looks at him with wide eyes. “Holy shit, I forgot you still have access to all of your government software. We’re going to do that and so much more.”</p><p>He drags him over to the biohackers who don’t even notice his arrival as they’re completely immersed in their work. He clears his throat, and a boy at the closest computer to them looks up at the noise. His face visibly brightens at the sight of Byeongkwan. “Oh, hey hyung!”</p><p>“Yuchan, this is Sehyoon. He’s a humanoid that used to work for the government.”</p><p>The newly named Yuchan gasps. “Holy shit, with all of the software intact? We could do so much with it. Do you mind if we access your software, Sehyoon?”</p><p>He feels taken aback. No one’s ever asked his permission for anything, he’s always been ordered around for as long as he can remember. He smiles. “Yeah, sure.”</p><p>Yuchan plugs a wire into his back and Sehyoon is hyper aware of the feeling now that his consciousness is human too. He doesn’t mind it that much, though, because he’s willing to be connected by wires this time. He wants to do this, for the humanoids who went through the same, for his family who lost their son, for himself. After a few minutes, Yuchan unplugs the cable, and he feels a bit of relief.</p><p>“Do we need a plan before I start fucking around with this system?” he asks Byeongkwan, who shrugs. “Alright, I’ll take that as a no. Let the fucking commence.”</p><p>In just a moment, Sehyoon receives a notice that the entire government system is down. No one is able to access any information stored on the government database, including personal and medical records, the CCTV tapes, and any of their websites. He suspects it’ll only take them a few minutes to get the system working again, and in that time, Yuchan quickly pulls up Twitter and begins leaking any confidential documents he could find.</p><p>“So, this is it?” Sehyoon asks, turning to Byeongkwan. “We just hide here?”</p><p>Byeongkwan sighs, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “Most of the people here have lived this way all of their lives. Until we get your information out of the system and change your name, you’re stuck here. So am I.”</p><p>“Chan, were you the one who just posted the document about government humanoids just now?” a boy sitting at the computer across from Yuchan asks. “It’s spreading really quickly.”</p><p>“What?!” Byeongkwan’s eyes widen, and he quickly looks over Yuchan’s shoulder, watching him analyze the Tweet’s analytics. The retweets and likes go up rapidly, and soon enough, when he refreshes the page, the Tweet becomes unavailable. Yet, they already know thousands of people have already viewed it and even downloaded the contents. They won’t even have to post it again for the whole country to find out the government was resurrecting dead people in exchange for free labor.</p><p>“Well, maybe we aren’t necessarily stuck here.” Byeongkwan gives Sehyoon a reassuring smile. “Maybe, just for a little while, thanks to you.”</p><p>“It was all you. Thank you for making me feel human.” Sehyoon can’t help but grin. He meets his eyes, looking into them deeply, a warm sensation blossoming in his chest. “And honestly, I don’t think I would’ve minded staying, anyways.”</p><p>He doesn’t say what’s completely on his mind, but Byeongkwan understands. “Yeah, same. I think I’d like it here.” <em> With you</em>.</p>
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